


Soft and Warm Continuing

by Tammany



Series: Kiss You When You Start Your Day [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bisexuality, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M, Sexual Identity, pansexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 11:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14284431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: Another "first time." So many ways to imagine happening what has never been shown but also never ruled out.This one came from thinking how much we like Lestrade cocky and sexy and in control--and how, in some ways, that seemed potentially unlikely for a man presumed to have been closeted gay or bi, married, trying to sort things out in middle-age after a rough divorce. So in this one Mycroft's taking the lead, if wracked with his own uncertainties.This has very little explicit in it... Character work, dialog, and tentative first moves, no more.I considered calling it "Mycroft's Song," but chose the quote from "Kathy's Song" instead. I like it that way.





	Soft and Warm Continuing

It’s night. 

Lestrade rode with Mycroft Holmes, in the back of the state-supplied chauffeured Jaguar, with the privacy panel up between the front and the back.

It was a rainy night. He looked out the window, past the rain-streaks and the brilliant, star-spangled lights of London in the rain, into the dark that lay beyond. The shared compartment smelled of wet wool from their coats and suits, and of Mycroft’s classic, inoffensive lime cologne. There were faint traces of cigarette smoke—neither man was ever quite completely free of the habit, struggle though they might.

 He and Mycroft had been attending a very late meeting scheduled for off-hours because no one would be there to see who attended or hear what was said in the carefully maintained clean-room, swept free of bugs, running MI6’s eternal sound-baffling technology. This was when Lestrade was reminded just how high up the ladder his association with Mycroft had placed him. Most of the time it was not something he consciously knew or cared about. His role was on the streets, in the Met, racing around with Mad Sherlock.

He raced after Mad Sherlock less these days. They were all getting older, in ways that showed. It wasn’t just Sherlock and John and Rosie making a strange, cobbled-together family at 221B Baker Street. His own hair was white and steel these days. Mycroft, the grumpy old Eeyore, had grown half-bald, with one valiant forelock curl refusing to pass from this earth. When it was combed down and gelled in place it looked like an off-angle exclamation point, shooting back in shock at some untoward comment. When time and weather wrested it free, it hung in a curved hook right in the middle of his forehead, tempting Lestrade to ask whether today he was good—or horrid.

Lestrade had turned 54 the past week. It wasn’t the end of the world. In some ways he was just hitting his stride, reaching his prime. Professionally he’d never spent more time in hush-hush meetings with hidden powers, for example. But—next year he’d be 55. Then 60 would come charging down the road, horns lowered, ready to gore him. He was a success on paper. (Paper classified so intensely that only people who’d sworn away their souls on the National Secrets Act got to see it.) But he’d begun to wonder what “success” was worth.

The truth—which he resolutely struggled to hide from himself, with mixed success—was that he was lonely, and tired with the sort of weariness that arose from a lack of hope, and a greater lack of anything much left to hope for. At 54 he had begun to note all the hopes he no longer held.

He no longer hoped to be a prodigy—a hope he held far too long, even after turning 30, even after meeting both Holmes Boys. He no longer hoped to be James Bond—though he indulged in wistful daydreams, even now, of sexy cars and sexier enemies and allies. He no longer hoped to be a rock star, though he still turned to his guitars for comfort in the night.

He had memorized “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and played it often, even while admitting that doing so was so self-indulgent and wet as to warrant terms like “emo.” That and “Norwegian Wood,” which he played with bitter irony as he plucked through the lines about “I once had a girl, or you could say she once had me.”

His wife certainly had “had” him. Over and over. Suckered him right royally. He couldn’t even blame her: he knew now with deepening depression that he was not what she wanted—never was, or ever would have been what she wanted—and he never admitted it to her, or to himself in all the time they were together. Instead he hid his own mixed nature and complex desires behind a work schedule from hell, and his own tantrums every time she broke down and went hunting for her own entertainment, lacking his interest.

Now, far too late, he was coming to terms with complexity. He liked women…but he hungered for men, too, and if he was totally honest with himself he wished his male friendships entailed…more. There was a comfort, a silent depth to men, a sense of understanding among men.

Or not, he thought, too tired to move. Too tired to speak. It was after midnight, and while tomorrow was the weekend and he had time off, it didn’t change the deep sense of exhaustion that pinned him to the sleek leather of the car seat.

He sighed.

“Are you all right, Inspector?”

Mycroft’s voice was like linen—posh, cool, ironed to flawless sleek perfection.

“I’m fine.” He didn’t say more. He didn’t know where to start, and did know Mycroft would not welcome such personal moping in any case.

He was lonely. He was at a point where there was more time behind him than lay ahead of him. He was running out of things to hope for, and those that were left all had a sloppy-seconds, consolation-prize feel to them. “I hope for good health.” “I hope to eat my Thai take-home without getting indigestion.” “I hope they don’t try to push me any higher in the Met—I have too much paperwork already.” “I hope I find a good new book on Amazon this weekend, it’s been too long since a book just swept me away.” “I hope they have those bagels I like at Tesco’s tomorrow.”

“You realize I know when you’re lying?” Mycroft said it with such dry, wry amusement.

“Not lying,” Lestade grumbled back, “Just tired.” After all, it was true, wasn’t it? Just tired. So tired…

“Mmm.” The little hum was disbelief made manifest. “Why do I doubt that?”

“Dunno. Because you’re a suspicious sonofabitch?”

A chuff of near-silent laughter husked out from the dark corner of the opposite seat. “That, too. You’re still evading my question.”

“I thought you said I was lying.”

“Lying—evading. In this case they are the same thing.”

“Mmm.” Lestrade’s little hum was denial passing as non-committal sulks.

The silence returned, broken by the soothing hum of London and the splish-shush of wheels in rain. But now it was as though Lestrade could feel Mycroft in the darkness; his old friend. His hidden partner. His colleague.

Lying, his own brain muttered. He’s more to you than that.

He was nothing more, Lestrade muttered back in denial. Even if Mycroft might have once had the potential to have been more to him—that time was long gone. There was no coming back to that early spark after, what—nearly fifteen years? And the spark—what spark? Had there even been a spark, or had Lestrade shied over nothing, like a frightened horse spooking over a skittering newspaper rattling on the bridle-path, all those years ago, back when he’d invested quite a lot in being the long-suffering straight husband of a restless wife. Had there even been anything to ignore?

And if there had been, it had been fifteen years. They were past all that, now, set in their ways. He didn’t even know how he’d have started that conversation fifteen years ago. Now? How do you begin, when you’re still not even sure what you want, or whether you really want it?

He did know how to get fucked by another man—how to fuck another man. He knew how it had worked when he was barely adult, and more than a little wild. You got a bit drunk, you got a bit stoned, you shared a bottle or a fag or a joint in the shadows of a club or a theater or out in the alley behind some scruffy little coffeehouse. You played the eye-game, waiting to catch the other out in a glance. You held the glance. Maybe he did. Maybe one of you got a bit tough, grabbed a worn t-shirt, leaned in for a rough, needy kiss. Grabbed junk. By then it was either absolutely happening, or absolutely not, and when it was done you didn’t take the other’s name or phone number. You left, offering yourself the manly comfort of telling yourself that it was just that you were the kind of man who screwed anything that moved. A real cocksman. They all wanted him back then, right?

As near as he could tell, Mycroft Holmes never wanted anyone…except as a colleague. He was gay, but largely in principle but not in action.

Lestrade closed his eyes against the lights outside. The trip was taking longer than usual…the traffic both busy and slow in the pounding rain, the driver seeming to take detours.

Part of his mind played hot, helpless porn movies of what he might once, long ago, have done with Mycroft—what Mycroft might once have done with him. What he might have liked. Then. Or not. Then.

“Now” is another country, living under other laws. He’d want more, now. Or less. Or different. Or nothing. Or everything.

He didn’t know.

How did you start? How did you ask if you didn’t even know what you were asking for?

“Lestrade…” Mycroft sounded worried—honestly worried.

“It’s nothing.”

“Bugger that for a game of soldiers.” Mycroft’s voice shifted from fretful to peevish in a split second. “Whoever _do_ you think you’re talking to, Inspector?”

“ _Greg_.” Lestrade rubbed the ache that haunted his temples and tightened his scalp. The ache migrated through his head, setting the roots of his hair on fire. “Just once it would be nice if you Holmes Boys admitted I’m a man, with a name, not just a rank. A rank you get wrong as often as not. It’s 'DCI Lestrade' these days. ‘Inspector’ went out of use back in, what, the eighties? No. Don’t answer even if you do know,” he added, cutting the other man off in the first tones of response. “I really can’t be arsed to hear it.”

The other man was silent long enough for Lestrade to start feeling embarrassed at his own ill-humor—and worried he’d seriously offended this man, whose importance in his life was both real and enormous, if impossible to define. Then Mycroft gave an irked little huff.

“Are you done faffing about? Could we, possibly, hold an actual conversation?”

Lestrade gave an inarticulate male growl. “Nothin’ to talk about.”

“Liar.”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to fight, offensive though the word was. “Leave off, mate. Please?”

“Why should I, when I’m concerned?”

“You’re a Holmes. Why don’t you deduce it and save me the effort? Better yet, if you figure it out you can tell me. Damned if I know what’s wrong.” Which was more than he had intended offering up—but enough, he hoped, to convince Holmes there was no real good to be gained blundering on.

“Hmmm.” Without looking away from the dark car window, he heard Mycroft stir in his seat. “But people are so often tetchy about being deduced.”

“Not like that ever stops you. Or Sherlock.”

“Well, no. It’s rather like asking someone to stop overhearing a loud domestic. Your ears don’t have an off switch. We deduce based on the obvious details people leave lying around. Hard to ignore and virtually impossible to intentionally stop processing.”

Lestrade, thinking of all the times his wife had accused him of prying when he’d merely noticed the obvious, sighed heavily. “True-that. Sorry, Mycroft. I’m just…” He trailed off, unable to decide what to say next.

“You are depressed,” Mycroft said, as though announcing something as obvious as the rising of the sun or the certainty of death and taxes. “What concerns me is why.”

“Damned if I know.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm backatcha, damn it. Not my fault I don’t know what’s got into me lately.”

“Your birthday—you’re feeling threatened by age and its inherent limits.”

“Oh, thanks ever-so, mate. That’s going to cheer me right up.”

“And you are…lonely.” There was a strange, strained note in Mycroft’s voice.

The car was dark. The city was as good as silent, filled with the mind-comforting splash of rain, hiss of wheels on wet tarmac, people living. The compartment smelled of damp wool and lime cologne and faint cigarette smoke. Of two men with mortal bodies. Of regret. Of fear. Of loneliness and despair.

Lestrade set his jaw, gulped down sudden grief.

“You and Sherlock.” He barely managed to get the words out, and his voice wasn’t as steady as he wished. “Just can’t resist that one deduction too many. At least I’m not alone in my fucking misery. What are the odds of one car holding the two loneliest men in London, eh?”

“I’m not lonely.” The words were crisp and tense…and far too easy to deduce.

“Lair.” Lestrade heard the fond laughter in his own voice, and said, more gently, “Give over, Holmes. That one’s perjury, pure and simple. Even you know it’s shite.”

“It most certainly is not.” The voice, though, said otherwise.

“I’m not Sherlock, sunshine. I can hear it when you’re fibbing.”

“Mmm.” This time it was a sullen little grumble. Then a deep breath was drawn, and Mycroft said, “Very well. I’m lonely. That in no way changes your own condition. Depressed, isolated, and lonely—and doing nothing to resolve the issue so you can get over this…melancholia.”

“Says the pot to the kettle.”

“Do maintain focus, Lestrade. After all, I’m not the one who’s been playing ‘Moody Blues’ all night.”

“Do you even know what that refers to?” Lestrade asked.

“A rock group from the seventies, I believe. Now, answer my question.”

“You haven’t asked one.”

“I’ve asked what’s wrong.”

“I’ve answered: _I don’t know_. And you’ve deduced—a lot of shite, but you’ve deduced anyway. Either way, there’s no outstanding questions left for me to be answering.”

An exasperated sigh. “Very well. What are you going to do about it, Inspector…sorry, Detective Chief Inspector Lestrade?”

“Gonna sulk in the dark until your driver finally gets me home, go drink a dram of passable scotch, take a hot shower, go to bed, and have a bit of a lie-in tomorrow morning. As good a treatment as any.”

“Hardly. It hasn’t worked so far, has it?”

There was that…

More silence.

“How long will it take for the driver to reach my place?”

“As long as it takes you to stop sulking.”

The clues fell into place. He sighed, resigned. “Oooooh, you sneaky bastard. Set me up for this?”

He could almost hear the smirk. “Perhaps. Somewhat. You have been a bit off for some time. It seemed a good time to try to address the issue. A late meeting, a long drive, a chance to talk.”

“Bastard.” Not that there was much force to the insult… But he liked his Holmes Boys, perhaps especially when they pulled one over on him for his own good. He leaned back into the seat, then, no longer staring out the window. Instead he closed his eyes, gave his neck a sharp twist that set off crackles he did not doubt Mycroft could hear, then arched his neck back hard, leaning into the neck rest, feeling his scalp relax and his sinuses drain. The pain of the headache receded, finally. The silence between the two men no longer felt hostile and empty, but companionable.

It was warm. The car was safe and comforting. The smell of damp wool was a distinctively British form of aromatherapy, taking Lestrade back to years of childhood with jumpers drying over radiators and damp trousers steaming away in classrooms. The cologne was familiar after years of working with Mycroft, and the nicotine-scent spoke of dozens of fags snuck while standing in the rain, letting go of anger and frustration, looking for peace enough to solve the latest case. He let his mind drift where it would.

“Mycroft—did you always know you liked men? Better, I mean?”

Mycroft clucked. “I could suggest that ‘better’ falls apart without specifying context. I assure you, I find Anthea’s sex something of a comfort in her role as my PA. I am unlikely to form any undue attachment not covered by simple collegiality. But that would be evasive of me. I…suppose I did know, when I finally knew enough to formulate the question in the first place. It took a few years for me to realize that there was a question to be asked, though. People did not offer homosexuality up as a possibility in our respective youths. For a time it did not occur to me that one ‘liked men better.’ I felt odd, complicated, anguished things about boys and men I knew, but presumed I would someday ‘fall in love’ with a female, marry, and proceed in the common way. It took a little time to recognize that the odd, complicated, anguished things I felt were ‘falling in love,’ or at least in desire, and that this showed no sign of ever happening with women. A few more months allowed me to work out that this condition correlated with words like ‘faggot,’ ‘fairy,’ ‘queer,’ ‘homo,’ and similar, suggesting that while I faced yet another social hurdle, I also was blessed with the right to recognize something about myself that was key. Unchanging. In that sense, yes. I always knew I liked men better, once I knew enough to ask which I liked in the first place.”

“Mmm.”

“That’s ambiguous. Why do you ask, Inspector?”

“Greg.”

“Greg.”

Lestrade had not planned to bring it up. It had simply arrived, the words falling from his mouth when he relaxed.

He was not stupid enough to think they were unimportant, though…and he was willing to go where his subconscious led him.

“I never did know,” he said, quietly. “I’m not sure I know now, which I ‘like best.’ Or even what it is I like, or why. I thought I liked girls, because I like girls, and they’re easy to talk to and fun, and I never screwed a single one and failed to like it just fine. I wank to round tits and round girl-bums and curvy legs and…” he gave a frustrated sigh. “But I never screwed a guy and didn’t like it, either. And when I’m wanking, girls aren’t the only thing I think about. But—it never seemed important. Or clear. Or easy to sort out. It was _easier_ just being a horn-dog who’d sleep with anything I could get a leg over, yeah? And then I fell in love with Lee. And then it went to hell. And now—I just think, sometimes, that I never wanted her half so much as I wanted what I didn’t know I wanted. Only I don’t know what I want. Not even now. If that makes sense. Which it doesn’t, but there you go.” He growled like a grumpy bear cub, frustrated and annoyed. “I envy you. You’re something. Maybe not something everyone likes. But you’re something.”

“You’re something, too,” Mycroft said, amused. “I believe the term is ‘bisexual.’ Or perhaps ‘pansexual’? In any case, your responses are fluid enough to encompass more than one option.”

“I just wonder if that’s why Lee and I never…if she needed more.”

“Perhaps she did. And? That’s her need, not your failure.”

“Mmm. Only…”

“Yes?”

It was night. Raining. They existed in a dark, damp, wool-scented safe space, riding through London well past midnight.

“Only I don’t know what to do about it, you know? Where to start. How to get on. I don’t want what I wanted when I was seventeen. Or twenty. Back then getting off was plenty good enough. Now—what if I get it wrong, just like I got it wrong with Lee? And where do you start when you don’t know what you want, or what you need, or how it works? I mean, I don’t want gay bars, or clubs, or… I don’t know. What to do. Where to start. How to finish if I’m wrong. Who…” His throat went tight, and he stopped, then, finally, at last, afraid. Even the car wasn’t safe enough for that final sentence, that one deduction too far.

The silence changed again, no longer soothing and comforting, but alive with tension. Mycroft’s breath had shifted, giving an uneven hitch, then settling again, deep and strong, like surf on a beach.

Then there was motion, and Mycroft was sitting beside Lestrade, sliding close. “I believe I can show you.” It would have been cheeky, if there had not been shy hesitation in his voice. A gloved hand settled delicately on Lestrade’s thigh. “If you want to explore the question with me, that is?”

Lestrade covered Mycroft’s hand with his own, blocking it from further exploration—but also keeping it from escaping. “I…”

Yes, his subconscious said, calmly. This is what you’ve been trying to find your way to face.

“Yes,” he said aloud, softly. “I think I’d like that. But—Mycroft, I don’t _know_ I’ll like it. I’m not sure of anything. At all. What I want, who I want, how I want it. What the long-term might be. I don’t know.”

Mycroft, tense with his own insecurity, husked, “What do you know, then?”

A smile bloomed in the dark, lighting Lestrade’s heart. “I know I’m lonely. But not as lonely with you here as I was with you over there.” His fingers tightened over Mycroft’s hand. “Is that enough to be getting on with?”

He thought he heard a smile in Mycroft’s voice, too—as warm and bright as his own. “Yes, Inspect…Greg. Yes. I think it’s plenty to be getting on with.”

Then Mycroft slid closer still, and began to teach his friend what he could about desire.

 

 

 

 


End file.
